Where were you when you heard the news? I was sitting in a very chilly train station in Edinburgh, cursing a delayed train, unable to extricate myself from Twitter to go get a restorative coffee, when the news came through: Members of the European Parliament, those elected but often-maligned creatures, had voted overwhelmingly in favour of radical, progressive reform of Europe’s fish laws.

I've had this growing feeling for a while now. There's no putting it off any longer. I'm just going to have to accept that not everyone is as fascinated by the spectroscopic properties of different greenhouse gases as I am.